Leading Small Teams

Do you have a hard time managing team dynamics? In this episode of HBR’s advice podcast, Dear HBR:, cohosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn answer your questions with the help of Julie Zhuo, a VP at Facebook and the author of The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You. They talk through what to do when your subordinate is bossing around others on the team, a star performer you’ve hired threatens your status, or you want to help an underperforming team member.

Listen to more episodes and find out how to subscribe on the Dear HBR: page. Email your questions about your workplace dilemmas to Dan and Alison at dearhbr@hbr.org.

From Alison and Dan’s reading list for this episode:

HBR: Make Sure Everyone on Your Team Sees Learning as Part of Their Job by Kristi Hedges — “A good starting point is simply to talk about your own development. When managers open up about their personal areas for improvement, it becomes more acceptable for everyone else to do the same. Ask yourself: What skills are you most excited to develop? What areas do you need to grow the most in? What insights have you found helpful in accomplishing these goals? Then share your answers with the rest of your team.”

Book: The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You by Julie Zhuo — “Running a team is hard because it ultimately boils down to people, and all of us are multifaceted and complex beings. Just like how there is no one way to go about being a person, there is no one way to go about managing a group of people. And yet, working together in teams is how the world moves forward. We can create things far grander and more ambitious than anything we could have done alone.”

HBR: How to Manage Your Former Peers by Amy Gallo — “Becoming the boss is an exciting transition, but it can also be a nerve-wracking one. This is especially true if you are now managing people who used to be your peers. You need to establish your credibility and authority, without acting like the promotion’s gone to your head.”

HBR: How to Manage Your Star Employee by Rebecca Knight — “Superstars can generate team tension. Perhaps they expect performance equal to theirs from others, or peers are jealous of their abilities and treat them differently than everyone else. You can’t control others’ emotions, but you do have a say in the way they act.”

ALISON BEARD: And I’m Alison Beard. Work can be frustrating. But it doesn’t have to be. We don’t need to let the conflicts get us down.

DAN MCGINN: That’s where Dear HBR: comes in. We take your questions, look at the research, talk to the experts, and help you move forward. Today we’re talking about leading small teams with Julie Zhuo. She’s the Vice President of Design at Facebook. She’s also the author of the book, The Making of a Manager. Julie, thanks for coming on the show.

JULIE ZHUO: Thanks for having me, Dan.

DAN MCGINN: I know your book pretty well because I was fortunate enough to work with you on it. The thing that jumps out at me is, how on your own you were. You were Facebook’s first intern, and you became a manager at 25.

JULIE ZHUO: So, we were at startup, and one of the opportunities that you get at fast-growing companies is that you constantly have to wear different hats, and you’re being asked to do different things.

ALISON BEARD: Tell us more about that transition from being an employee, an early employee, to then managing a team.

JULIE ZHUO: I started as an engineer at Facebook, and our company kept growing. And that was when my manager took me aside and said hey, I have more reports now than I can really handle, I’m looking for someone else to manage, and you really get along with everyone. So, have at it. Will you do this with me? And when I look back on those first three years, the primary emotion I felt was just anxiety, or the sense of imposter syndrome, that I was really in over my head, because I was constantly put in situations that I had never been in before, and frankly made a lot of mistakes.

DAN MCGINN: So, Julie, you started out running a really small team. Today, how many people report up to you?

JULIE ZHUO: Today, my team is in the hundreds.

ALISON BEARD: OK, let’s go to the first letter. Dear HBR: I’ve been promoted to be the head of a small nonprofit. It has about six full-time staff, mostly women like me. We’ve worked together for more than five years. It’s a big transition for me to be the director above them, and my job responsibilities have shifted. I have to let go of some of the work I used to do. With input from others, I promoted a senior employee to a new role, and I’ve been training her to take on these tasks. She’s highly respected, task-oriented, and very responsible. She’s amazing that way. But her drive and high expectations sometimes come across as bossy, demanding, and dismissive. Now her management is creating tensions in our small team. I’ve noticed that she’s using the same tactics she employs with her direct reports to communicate with her peers and with me. It gets more complicated. She’s going through some extremely stressful times in her personal life. Knowing what she’s dealing with, I’ve struggled to offer her feedback in the moment. I need to prevent further tensions, though. Should I give her time and space to find her way in this new role, including making mistakes and learning her own lessons? Or should I intervene quickly and be more directive?

JULIE ZHUO: That is a very, very common scenario, and I’m, in my head I’m playing through all of the times in my career where something very, very similar happened to me. The first thing I would say is before we get talking about feedback or how to say it, or what exactly to say, let’s first make sure that we have the same definition or impression of what, what is the outcome that we’d like to see in the team.

DAN MCGINN: This bit about her being bossy, demanding, and dismissive, do people typically change when they go into a leadership role when you promote people up?

JULIE ZHUO: I don’t think it’s uncommon that people do, and I think it’s because we have this perception of what a manager or what a leader is supposed to be. And we have this perception from years of watching movies and TV shows, or maybe from our own experiences with bosses in the past. And I know that for me, when I became a manager, my impression of what a manager was, was someone who was very confident always, knew what the, what the right answers were, who tells people what to do, or say hey, this is how it’s gonna be, because they had decision-making authority, and so in my mind, I felt like I had to do that, too. I would have to call the shots.

DAN MCGINN: And did you realize that was a mistake over time? Did you temper that?

JULIE ZHUO: I did. Because you do that long enough, and you realize that’s not actually the best way to get results, and also because I would get feedback from people as well that hey, when you made that decision, and you didn’t talk to anybody else about it, it felt like you were just pushing your way through, and frankly I don’t really agree with that. And that’s when I realized that for people to want to follow you, which is the prerequisite for a leader, you also have to have that conversation with them. You have to make these decisions with them, with their input. It doesn’t mean you manage by consensus, but it means that people have to understand the why and that they feel like there’s a fair process to what the team decides to do.

ALISON BEARD: So, when you mentioned discussing desired outcomes with this employee, you want our letter-writer to talk to her about her leadership style, and how to act like a boss in a–

DAN MCGINN: Less bossy way?

ALISON BEARD: Yes.

JULIE ZHUO: Yeah. And one way to start the conversation might be hey, let’s talk about what success looks like in your role, and in my role. Recently I’ve gotten some feedback about the way that you’re working with the team from your reports, so I want to understand. What do you consider success to be? How do you want your relationship with your reports to be?

ALISON BEARD: And it’s not just her relationship with her reports. It’s with her peers, and it seems like she’s even being dismissive to our letter-writer, the new head of this organization.

JULIE ZHUO: Right, a great point. I think the first thing is to just also open it up. Let her talk. Let her describe what she thinks is, is that ideal relationship she wants to have with people, and through that, it’s a way to understand what her values are, what she’s prioritizing, and then maybe also what are the things that do happen to be her blind spots?

DAN MCGINN: Is it your sense that this is a pretty fixable kind of issue, leadership style, or is there a point at which you might conclude hey, we made a bad decision here. Maybe this person shouldn’t have been a manager in the first place.

JULIE ZHUO: It depends on two things. The first is, they may not be aware of the impact, and in those cases, often-times if you just make them aware, and you help them see what is actually happening, why it’s having that effect, and what the consequences are, people get it, and they’re like oh my gosh, that’s not at all what I meant to do, and it’s something that’s easily fixable. It’s easily correctable. There’s a second scenario, which is maybe they are aware, but this is a more deliberate decision, and they believe very deeply that this is the only way that they can be effective. I think there’s a third scenario in which people are like that’s just who I am, that’s how I want to be, and I’m not motivated to change. And in those situations, it’s just, it’s not a good fit, and it’s not something that’s going to get much better, so this person probably shouldn’t be in the role that they’re in.

ALISON BEARD: How can our letter-writer push this employee to make those changes without getting her on the defensive?

JULIE ZHUO: If the report believes the manager really cares about her, has her back, and vice versa, then it’s much easier to go into that conversation and to say look, I really care about you, I want to see you be successful, I’m here to support and give you whatever feedback or advice you need, but I’ve gotta let you know that this is a thing that I’m seeing, or that I’m hearing, that is making it harder for you to be successful. And a lot of times, if you lead with that, you’re doing this not to tell them bad news, or because you want to push them down, but you’re doing it because you want to see them succeed, often-times that’s a way to have people feel like they can let their walls down, and they can listen and internalize versus getting into oh my gosh, I’m being attacked, I need to push back on this.

DAN MCGINN: Do you think the context is important here, the fact that this is a six- or seven-person nonprofit, where everybody’s worked together for five years?

JULIE ZHUO: My experience is when you’re in a really small team, and everyone has that familiarity with each other, it can actually be challenging to have that direct feedback. And the second question I would have for the letter-writer is, OK, maybe how can the team as a whole get to the point where maybe people are comfortable giving that kind of feedback to each other? I find that in some of the healthiest and most efficient teams I’ve been a part of, people have that, that bedrock of trust with each other, and they also have a culture where it’s OK to give feedback, even critical feedback, as a way to help support and push each other to be better.

ALISON BEARD: How transparent should this boss be about the fact that she understands that there are tensions on the team, created not only by her own promotion, but then this other employee’s promotion, and her management style?

JULIE ZHUO: I think if it’s clear that there are tensions on the team, or rumors are running rampant, and people don’t get along, and if it’s visible, so for example, if there’s a team meeting, and it feels very tense, and it feels like people are clashing with each other, and so other people are witnessing that, then I do think it’s better to acknowledge it. However, if there’s let’s say tension between these two reports, and maybe the other people on the team are not aware of the details of what’s going on between those two people. I think as a manager, it’s not really your place to try and tell everyone else that X or Y are feuding, or they don’t get along.

ALISON BEARD: I think it sounds like on this team, it’s such a small group. It sounds as if the tensions are among everyone.

JULIE ZHUO: Yes, but the best way I’ve found, if there’s four or five people on the team, maybe, in this case, the other members of the team all think that X shouldn’t have been promoted, or isn’t doing a good job. Once you share that feedback with this report, encourage the report to go and have that conversation with the other individuals on the team.

ALISON BEARD: So, we should address the fact that this manager feels as if her employee is dealing with a really stressful personal situation. Perhaps that’s driving her dismissive, bossy behavior because she’s just so stressed out. Julie, what can our letter-writer do to figure out what’s wrong and how she can help?

JULIE ZHUO: I’m really glad you brought that up, Alison because I think that’s one of the most important parts of this letter, as we were reading it. If one of your reports is going through a very difficult personal challenge, it’s quite common for that to bleed into the workplace. We’re not two different people outside of work and in work. And so, as a manager, one of the things that she should think about doing is just talking to her employee about, hey it sounds like you’re going through a really difficult time right now. What do you need to be successful? Do you need some time off? Do you need a reduced workload as you’re going through this challenge? Are there things that I could be doing to help you, to support you, and to just make sure that the other person understands that the manager has her back.

ALISON BEARD: Should that conversation be separate from the feedback conversation, the constructive criticism on her management style?

JULIE ZHUO: It doesn’t have to be separate. I think it could be part of the same conversation, but I think it, I really believe it has to come first.

DAN MCGINN: So, Alison, what’s our sum-up?

ALISON BEARD: First, with regard to the personal situation, we think that our letter-writer, the boss, should just make sure that this woman is taking care of herself, has what she needs to manage, just make her feel supported. But then she should also talk to her about what success looks like in this new role as a leader in the organization. How does she want to be perceived as a manager? How will she build relationships both with her reports and her peers? Our letter-writer should let this employee describe her ideal relationships, the outcomes that she wants, and then make her aware that some of her behaviors might be limiting her from achieving that. Is she aware of them? Does she believe she needs to act that way? Is she just saying that’s the way I am? She should explain that she wants to see the employee succeed in this new leadership role, and encourage her to change her style, and then as a last thing, our letter-writer should consider how the team as a whole, this tight-knit group, could get better at giving feedback to each other.

DAN MCGINN: Second letter. Dear HBR: I work at a start-up, and I’ve been making progress increasing my levels of responsibility. As a team leader, I’ve recently hired a very fierce woman, full of energy. In some areas, she is much more experienced than me. She’s kind of in the spotlight of the owners right now. It’s great to work with her, and we’ve become friends. But she is directly below me in the hierarchy. I’m having a hard time conducting one-on-ones and mentoring her. I’m afraid to be seen as the inexperienced guy who’s 15 years younger than she is. How should I deal with this? Julie, what’s your initial reaction?

JULIE ZHUO: The first thing is, I think this person did a fantastic job hiring this woman. She seems like a wonderful hire, she’s brought a lot of value to the organization, and in the beginning of his letter, he says that he hired her. So, props, props to you for doing one of the most leverage things that a manager can do, which is bring on star talent and great people to help the team.

DAN MCGINN: So, it’s totally possible and even normal for a less experienced person to have to manage a more experienced, older star talent kind of person, in your experience?

JULIE ZHUO: Yes, I think it’s actually very common that as a manager, you might get a report that is older than you, more experienced than you, better than you at a certain skill.

DAN MCGINN: Your first reaction was that, congratulations to him for making such a good hire. Is the flip side of that that many people would probably or might have made the wrong decision and not hired somebody 15 years older and more experienced, just to avoid this conflict, even if it’s something they can fix?

JULIE ZHUO: Yes, I think so. I think that often-times, again, we have that impression of management, where we have to feel like maybe our managers are more experienced, better than us, stronger leaders, and I think if we’re in that situation, sometimes we have this block, where we really feel comfortable hiring people whose career paths we understood, or that we’ve gone through ourselves, and I think that limits the amount of great talent that we get exposed to, and that we potentially could be adding to our team.

ALISON BEARD: Regardless of whether he should feel insecure, he is feeling insecure. So, how does he get over that?

JULIE ZHUO: It strikes me that this letter-writer has an impression of management that maybe as the manager, you have to be more experienced or be better to, in order to support or in order to maybe even lead the team. Let’s talk about what is the job of a manager, and how do we distinguish a great manager from let’s say an average manager? And to me, the job of a manager is, very simply, get great outcomes from your team in a sustainable manner. I’d encourage our letter-writer to ask this report, hey, you’ve been doing great work, you’ve been awesome, we’ve got this great feedback. But I want to understand, what can I do to better support you? What can I do to help you be even more effective?

ALISON BEARD: And in so doing, he’ll earn her respect.

JULIE ZHUO: Yes. And you know, she may have good ideas. She might say it’d be great if you could help clear the way on this thing, or help me develop a relationship with X or Y. She might have all sorts of ideas and things that she could use his help with, that is, is going to help her be more effective.

DAN MCGINN: Isn’t it natural to feel threatened if suddenly one of your direct reports is a little bit better than you are, and isn’t it natural for him to fear that over time, the owners and others are going to recognize this, and she’s going to start to lap me or take my position?

JULIE ZHUO: That is a good outcome. I know that in the past, I’ve brought in star talent, and they’ve gone on to become, over time, my peer, and build great teams, and people don’t forget that I was the one who brought them in.

ALISON BEARD: This notion that she’s in the spotlight means that he’s not, and so how can he ensure that he’s also in the spotlight to some degree, just by being a good boss to her?

JULIE ZHUO: Yes, by being a good boss to her, but being able to represent her work, as well as the other team’s work, by even maybe coming up with ideas for her to have a wider impact. Maybe she can mentor some of the other people on the team. If you’re the manager, and you bring on great people, and they do great work, you get a lot of that credit, too.

ALISON BEARD: Is there any way to make that work more visible, though?

JULIE ZHUO: As a manager, there’s probably a lot of instances in which you do probably represent your team’s work, right, or you help advocate for them to get more resources. One of the ways that he can help his team have wider impact is, hey, if this woman is really great, and she’s able to maybe tackle on more projects, then maybe he could talk to his bosses or his peers and say, our team is capable of more. Give us more. We have great people, and we can solve even more problems than what we’re currently solving today.

DAN MCGINN: It’s probably important that this is all taking place at a start-up, where there is a lot of growth and a lot of opportunity.

JULIE ZHUO: You’re right. That’s a great point, that this probably makes a little bit more sense in a place where there’s room for many people to become successful, but I would also argue that let’s say you were at a small place, and let’s say the company maybe didn’t have a ton of funds, and so it feels very zero-sum. It feels like there’s no room for someone to get promoted unless someone else leaves. I would still argue that in those cases, again, talent and people are one of the most important resources that any company has and if people are coming on, and they capable of more, then that is expanding the ability of the company, and that is creating more room for everyone.

ALISON BEARD: I think that’s a great point. So much of the research that we’ve published on managing star employees emphasizes this role of the manager to push them to greater heights, just keep giving them stretch assignments, keep giving them new challenges, but then also the autonomy to do it and knock it out of the park. Dan, what is our advice?

DAN MCGINN: So, first, we congratulate the letter-writer for hiring this woman in the first place. A lot of managers might have been scared, frankly, to hire somebody who’s more experienced, older, maybe a little bit more talented, because it’s natural to feel threatened. This person was able to overcome that fear and make this hire. He’s brought some great talent into the organization, and over time, he’s going to get a lot of credit for that. Second, we think the big thing a manager needs to do is provide great outcomes for the team, and having a star player like this on the team is going to increase the odds your team does great things. Ask how you can help her, recognize that you’re probably not going to be teaching her the nuts and bolts of what she needs to do, that the coaching might be a little bit more about stretch assignments, about autonomy, about clearing obstacles or helping her get resources. Mentoring doesn’t need to be clear instruction about the tasks of the job. Some of it can be about navigating the environment of the company. Get over the fact that you worry that this woman might overtake your position because she’s so talented. It’s natural to feel those instincts, but they’re not going to be helpful. They’re going to hurt you, and just try to avoid feeling those to the extent you can. We also think it’s important that this is a start-up, it’s a growing company, they’re going to need more managers, there’s going to be more opportunity, not less, so it’s not a zero-sum game. If she is able to advance in the organization, it won’t necessarily come at a cost to him, and over time, if she ends up being his peer, that could be a good outcome for everybody.

ALISON BEARD: Dear HBR: I manage a team of five women at a small consulting firm. They’re very close in age, under 30. One of my direct reports is super smart, thoughtful, and a very hard worker. She really knows her craft. But she’s struggling with what I would call something like owning the room or command presence. She’s slow to speak and quiet when she does. Sometimes she stumbles over her words trying to get out a full thought. People wait for her, then take over, because it can get awkward. It was something that was a concern when we interviewed her, but we chalked it up to nerves. After more than six months, I was hoping she would have shaken this. But she hasn’t. Not in front of clients, and not in front of her peers. I can relate to her. I used to be more quiet, reserved, and probably not as confident a woman as I am today. I grew out of it, I suppose. Back then, I never got feedback on it from my manager. I just recognized that I needed to get comfortable in front of big groups. I found ways to work through my nerves. But that was at a very large company, through an on-site, with classes and project work. We’re a small firm here. Training isn’t something I can get budget for. I could see her falling behind, or getting discouraged. I’m new at giving this type of constructive feedback. I don’t want to mess it up. I think I can clearly articulate to her the situation and the impact it will have. I can also tell her how I overcame this myself. But I’m worried I’ll jumble it. I’m honestly also afraid that she might not be able to tackle this issue on her own. Here’s what I’m thinking. With her permission, I would tell others that this is her #1 priority. So, for projects when I’m not her manager, or on her team, she needs to be actively seeking opportunities to build her skills in this area, and get feedback. Will this plan work?

JULIE ZHUO: My first reaction is, I think this manager is wonderful for, for recognizing the strengths of this employee, but also recognizing one of the things that is holding her back, and so that, this to me feels like a very nuanced understanding of OK, here’s a thing I’ve identified, and now I want to put together a plan, so we’re very far along in even just being able to, I think, get to a great outcome, because this manager totally sees the challenges and wants to make that work.

DAN MCGINN: I like the way the letter-writer has the attitude that: Look, I don’t have a budget to put her into on-site training, or anything that’s super expensive, but maybe if I alert her that this is a problem, and it’s going to hold her back over time, she’ll be able to get her own resources and fix this on her own. These kinds of things, presentations and owning the room, it seems like there are a lot of resources out there that somebody could tap into on their own, to try to fix this, don’t you think?

JULIE ZHUO: Yes, I think so. But I also think the letter-writer probably has a lot more capability to help the report than maybe she thinks. The fact that the letter-writer had gone through this experience before, and so can empathize with her report, and also the fact that the letter-writer can give her that feedback on when she is, where she’s seeing that happen, and potentially they could work through some plans, some exercises, to put this into practice, small tactics that you could try.

ALISON BEARD: I’m slightly worried about involving the whole team in this project on what seems to be a very quiet employee, though. Is anyone else worried about that?

JULIE ZHUO: The thing that I thought was great is that she said hey, I would obviously, with my report’s permission. The way that I read it was that this was more about ensuring that other people that the report was working with would be able to give her feedback, even if this manager weren’t present. That’s how I read, I read that, which seemed like a good idea to me. Sometimes talking about that, and having someone to be able to go back and forth with, someone who says actually, that is a good point, or you do have good thoughts, and the room deserves to hear them.

ALISON BEARD: So, how can we encourage our letter-writer to help this employee without making her terribly self-conscious at this thing that she’s sort of bad at, and maybe can’t do in the way that everyone else can, but still get her to the level where she can be promoted and can be seen as a leader?

JULIE ZHUO: Yeah, I’m so glad you asked that. Because you’re right, that there may be other ways that this person, this report, who’s so hard-working, who has a lot to offer the team, can find other ways that are more comfortable with which to express herself. How about writing, right? Sometimes it can be hard for us to speak up in a large group on the spot, but if this person is thoughtful, perhaps writing is another way where maybe you don’t have to make that brilliant point in the meeting. Maybe you can share it via email over, right afterwards, or even beforehand, to say hey, after that discussion, I’ve been reflecting on it, and here’s some additional thoughts. Or, if the organization is using a workplace communication tool, like Slack or something else, maybe this person can be encouraged to share more of her thoughts through mediums that are more comfortable for her style.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. I do wonder, I am all for baby steps because I think that’s the best way to make people comfortable with new things, but is there an argument for just giving this woman a big presentation, and asking her to step up to the plate?

DAN MCGINN: Tough love, I’ll say. [LAUGHTER]

ALISON BEARD: No, I say that because I used to also be terrified of getting on stage, and doing public speaking, and I agreed to do a Q&A at a conference, and I walked into the room and realized that it was an audience of 1000 people, and I just said OK, well I guess I just have to do this now. And that really made it easier for me to do any other lower-key event ever since. So–

DAN MCGINN: So, tough love.

ALISON BEARD: It was terrifying, but it helped.

JULIE ZHUO: I always think that if this is something that you want to get better at, just any type of practice, just put yourself out there. Maybe if she’s comfortable saying that to other people, to the other folks on the team, and saying hey, here’s a skill I really want to work at, I want to get better at public speaking, I want to get better at having that presence in the room, will you help me?

DAN MCGINN: Julie, the listener says that she’s new at giving this type of constructive feedback, and she seems like she’s really worried about the conversation in which she talks with the person about this. How would you approach that conversation?

JULIE ZHUO: I would approach it first by trying to have the other person understand my intent and why I’m giving that feedback. And in this case, the intent is really good. The intent is, I think you’re wonderful at these aspects of the job. I want to help you succeed and be even more impactful. Here’s something that I see that may be holding you back. To always lead with the reason I’m giving you this is because I want to help you, and I want to see you be successful, and I want you to achieve every one of your career aspirations, and that’s why we’re having this conversation.

ALISON BEARD: What if she has the motivation but just doesn’t get better at it? She stays shy, she stays an introvert, she never develops this executive presence? Is she someone that you keep?

JULIE ZHUO: I have rarely seen a situation in which someone is motivated and then they just, nothing changes. Especially in regard to soft skills. If this person isn’t making fast enough progress on this skill, does that mean that she’s just not able to meet the expectations of her job, or is it just means that maybe she’s not going to grow or advance quite as quickly, but that there’s still ability for her to make progress, maybe over a longer time frame.

DAN MCGINN: Julie, the listener says that they had a concern about this woman and her ability to command the room back when they interviewed her six months ago and that they thought she might overcome it, it could have just been nerves. Did they make a mistake in not telling her right up front when they hired her, hey, everybody’s really on board with you, the thing we’re concerned about, and the thing we want you to work on from day one, is “ X.”

JULIE ZHUO: I find that in these interviews, it is always helpful to, to let people know what is your initial feedback, because even if you do give them that offer, they’re coming into the role with an understanding of what you thought they did super well, that’s going to be awesome for the organization, but also things that you want to help them work towards, and that they should be aware of, so that they can be set up for the next foot. So, yeah, in the future, maybe that would be very helpful feedback to give at the time in which you’re presenting the offer, or in those first conversations, when, when trying to help someone set up, be set up for success in their job.

DAN MCGINN: Alison, what are we telling her?

ALISON BEARD: So, first, we want to congratulate her for being such a thoughtful manager. We think that she should approach this employee, just leading with the fact that she has so many strengths, but there is this one developing area that she needs to focus on, and getting better at it will help her advance in her career. She should encourage the employee to set small goals for herself, even if it’s speaking a couple of times in every meeting, or expressing herself in other ways, even via Slack, or email, to make sure that her voice is heard. She should ensure the employee that it’s not going to go perfectly at first, and it will feel uncomfortable, but that’s OK, as long as she’s growing. She might want to consider helping this employee build up to a bigger public speaking challenge, and she should definitely point her to outside resources that can help her build executive presence. Last, it might be a good idea to enlist the help of the team, but she should make sure that the employee isn’t uncomfortable with it. She’s right to think that it should only happen with her permission.

DAN MCGINN: Julie, thanks for coming on the show.

JULIE ZHUO: Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun.

DAN MCGINN: That’s Julie Zhuo. She’s the Vice President at Facebook. Her book is The Making of a Manager. Thanks to the listeners who wrote us with their questions. Now we want to know your questions. Send us an email with your workplace challenge and how we can help. The email address is dearhbr@hbr.org.

ALISON BEARD: We also want to thank Louis Weeks and Nick DePrey for composing our theme music. And if you like the show, please give us a 5-star review.